Today President Obama met in Toluca, Mexico, with President Peña Nieto of Mexico and Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada for the North American Leaders Summit. They discussed their vision for a prosperous and secure future for the citizens of all three countries and their shared commitment to work together to realize that vision. They announced concrete initiatives by the three countries aimed at enhancing our competitiveness in the global economy, expanding opportunities for our citizens, and promoting peace, security, and development through multilateral action. Some of these initiatives include:
INCLUSIVE AND SHARED PROSPERITY
- Creating a North American Trusted Traveler Program, allowing vetted individuals to travel more easily between our three countries.
- Harmonizing trade data, consistent with international standards, to make it easier for companies to do business in our three countries.
- Joint Investment and Tourism Cooperation including exchanging best practices.
- Creating a North American Transportation Plan, starting with freight planning.
- Exchanging information on our strong bilateral border initiatives.
- Strengthening trilateral regulatory cooperation in order to ease burdens on business.
INNOVATION/EDUCATION
- Creating a Trilateral Research, Development and Innovation Council, encouraging opportunities for North American leadership and a trilateral network of entrepreneurs, as well as economic development efforts in highly integrated regions, like the Pacific Northwest Economic Region and the CaliBaja mega region.
- Increasing educational exchanges and promoting skills for a 21st century workforce.
- Promoting trilateral cooperation on women’s empowerment and entrepreneurship.
ENERGY/CLIMATE CHANGE
- Holding a North American Energy Ministers Meeting in 2014 in order to define areas for strong trilateral cooperation on energy.
- Supporting efforts to reinvigorate the Commission for Environmental Cooperation.
- Continue trilateral work under the Montreal Protocol to phase down HFC production and consumption.
- Continuing trilateral coordination in the Climate and Clean Air Coalition.
- Declaring North American adherence to high standards in fuel quality, emissions standards, and fuel efficiency for heavy-duty vehicles.
CITIZEN SECURITY
- Trilateral Coordination on emergency management communications.
- Broadening the North American Plan for Animal and Pandemic Influenza to include other health security threats; leverage this collaboration as a model to strengthen global health security.
- Increasing trilateral cooperation to combat importation of counterfeit products.
- Fighting trafficking in persons, including through a trilateral technical-level exchange.
REGIONAL, GLOBAL AND STAKEHOLDER OUTREACH
- Providing North American support for a Disaster Risk Insurance Initiative for Central America to enhance the ability of the region to respond swiftly to natural disasters.
- Increasing North American cooperation on energy in Central America and the Caribbean.
- Creating an outreach mechanism to increase stakeholder input, including from civil society.